1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to selecting hopping target channels for a device which is disposed in a network such as a wireless local area network (WLAN) but does not use the network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a WLAN, a WLAN device may preferentially use a frequency band of the WLAN. Therefore, according to a wireless communication protocol, a device which is not a WLAN device (hereinafter referred to as “non-WLAN device”) should hop a frequency channel periodically while using a frequency band of a WLAN. For example, a non-WLAN device should hop 15 frequency channels or more at a period of 0.4 second in a WLAN.
Hereinafter, a channel denotes a frequency band having a predetermined channel width (or bandwidth) to be used. For a WLAN device, a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) device using this WLAN may be exemplarily used. For a non-WLAN device, a network monitor camera which does not use this WLAN may be exemplarily used.
FIG. 1 shows channels that may be used by a WLAN device in a frequency band of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11b standard. 13 channels may be used in South Korea as illustrated in FIGS. 1, and 11 channels may be used in the United States.
Referring to FIG. 1, an available frequency band for WLAN devices ranges from about 2.4 to 2.4835 GHz, and a channel width thereof is about 83.5 MHz. Therefore, if a channel width applied to a non-WLAN device included in a WLAN of 83.5 MHz is about 1 MHz, the non-WLAN device may use 83 channels at maximum. In this case, the non-WLAN device should hop frequency channels periodically while using 15 frequency channels or more.
However, in the same frequency band of 83.5 MHz, a channel interval between channels available to a WLAN device is about 5 MHz, and a width of each channel is about 22 MHz, which is considerably wide. Therefore, in the case where a WLAN device is newly added or a non-operating WLAN device operates again while a non-WLAN device communicates with an external apparatus in this 83.5 MHz frequency band, there is a high probability that a frequency channel used by the non-WLAN device is interfered. That is, there is a high probability that communication of the non-WLAN device does not function temporarily.